


walk me out into the rain and snow

by somethingradiates



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, unresolved love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:34:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingradiates/pseuds/somethingradiates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I just don't like having to sneak around</i>, he'd said one night a few weeks back, one arm looped around Boyd's thin waist, chin resting on his shoulder from behind. <i>Wish there was just one place we could go we wouldn't have to hide.</i></p>
<p><i>Welcome to Harlan County</i>, Boyd had said, and if Raylan was anyone else, anyone that didn't know him quite as well, he'd miss the bitterness in his voice. <i>Enjoy your stay</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	walk me out into the rain and snow

**Author's Note:**

> [accompanying mix](http://8tracks.com/noapology/i-dream-a-highway). title is from gillian welch's "i dream a highway". 
> 
> please ignore any timeline discrepancies.

**twelve**

_I would be much obliged_ , Boyd Crowder is telling him, and even at twelve years old – twelve, maybe thirteen; Raylan think he might be a mite older than him, and finds out the next year that he's really younger – he's oddly eloquent (or, as Raylan's daddy puts it, too goddamn smart for his own good, and if _his_ daddy says that he don't want to hear what Bo Crowder has to say), _if you would take your_ god-damned _hands off me, Raylan Givens._ He's holding himself tight like a bowstring, and Raylan does as he's told, dropping his hand away from the constellation of bruising that spans from Boyd's skinny hip to his shoulder. 

They're in the locker room, just done with showers, the last ones in and last ones out. Junior high baseball, already as competitive as the high school boys, already talking about how they'll beat the two-year state championship record, and already it's sweltering hot, dead set in the middle of June. Raylan loves baseball – he likes sports altogether, likes the chance to get out of the house and the hell away from Arlo, but he's good at this, fast and smart and capable. Best on the team, Coach Anderson says, but not where anybody but Raylan can hear him. 

(He says it to Arlo, just once. _About time he's good at something, ain't it?_ Arlo's laughing like he expects him to agree. Anderson doesn't talk to Arlo again, not ever, not that Raylan can see.) 

“Your daddy do that?” Raylan's not half sure why he asks and the words startle him a little when they come out of his mouth. It's a stupid question, of course Bo did it – Bo beats on his wife, why wouldn't he beat on his boys? Except Raylan's never seen bruises on Boyd, not ever, and a sharp little worm of anger is working its way through his guts, up to his lungs until he feels like he's got to tell himself to breathe. 

Boyd Crowder snarls something that sounds like _go to hell_ , and it's the last time Raylan hears him sound undone for a very long time. 

 

**twenty-four**

Raylan tries his damnedest to stay away from Kentucky and, in fact, the tri-state area, but it doesn't mean Kentucky stays away from him. He's in the Florida Panhandle, sitting in a diner – they're not like home, but they're good enough, and coffee is coffee anywhere you go – when he hears _Raylan? Raylan Givens?_

He looks up from the file he's glancing through, eyebrows high on his forehead, and the expression of surprise on his face is quickly replaced by cautious pleasure. “Sarah Beth,” he says, “my God, what are you doin' this far from home?” 

“I could ask you the same thing,” she says, mostly playful but a little bit serious, too, and glances at the empty seat across from him. “You meetin' anybody?” 

He glances at his watch; he's got another forty-five minutes to go until his supervisor gets here – he's drowning time in cups of overbrewed coffee, and he says as much, _killin' time until the boss gets here, sit down_. That gets a smile out of her. Sarah Beth Ryerson was always quick to smile at him, though, and he doesn't count it as much of a victory.

“What brings you down here?” he says, after she has a seat and orders a coffee from the passing waitress. Sarah Beth looks at him, all light skin and freckles and big brown eyes; she's a good three or four years younger than him – she was a junior varsity cheerleader when he played varsity football in school – but she's grown up just fine, long brown hair swept off her shoulders in a cheap mottled claw-clip. She looks good, and he wonders if she's gotten the hell out of Harlan, too, or if she's just managed to stave off the plague – babies and booze and pills and mean husbands – that seems to befall every pretty girl that stays in its borders. 

“Oh, my mama's aunt lives down here,” she says. “She took ill last year, we come down every couple months to see her. Never thought I'd run into you here, of all places.” 

“Likewise,” Raylan says, taking a sip of his coffee. There's a little more smalltalk before the conversation turns the direction he expects, and Sarah Beth is saying, leaning in a little conspiratorially, “You know what, Raylan, you're about the talk of the town these days. Runnin' off to be a fed, of all things.” 

“Marshal,” Raylan says, showing her his badge, and she sits back in her chair, laughing like a bell. “Lord, I wonder what your daddy thinks about that?” 

“Oh, I wouldn't know,” Raylan says mildly, lifting his mug to his lips again. “How's the old crowd doin', Sarah Beth?” 

“Who, Casey and Danny and the Crowders?” Sarah Beth's smile fades a little. “Bowman went and married himself Ava Delaney couple years back. Casey's gettin' married to Mary Shanahan from West's Holler... Danny moved himself up to Lexington, last I heard.” 

There's a moment's pause, then, deliberately casual: “And Boyd?” 

Sarah Beth shrugs one shoulder. “Joined the Army, went to Kuwait,” she says, and something spiked and cold and heavy drops from the base of Raylan's neck to sink itself into his belly. He'd know if – Helen would tell him, at least, she'd – 

“Came back different,” Sarah Beth says finally, and Raylan lets out an inaudible breath. He hadn't realized he was holding it. “He's workin' in the mines again, him and his brother, but he's always talkin' about he's a sov'reign citizen, whatever the hell that means. How he don't have to pay taxes and such.” 

Raylan lets out a noncommittal little _hmm_ , studying his coffee. 

 

**thirteen**

Boyd Crowder's mama is from up near Sorrow Creek, way down deep in the back hollers. She's too pretty for Bo Crowder, that's what all the church ladies say – plus Mama and Aunt Helen, and neither of them are any kind of church lady, although if someone said that to Raylan's face he'd put them on the ground. Mama acts like that's really something to say, _too pretty for him_ , because from what Raylan understands – though it isn't as though he makes a habit of listening in on her and Helen's conversations – Bo Crowder used to really be something to look at when he was young. 

Not so now, Mama says, sniffing a little like she disapproves of herself for saying it. 

(You don't say bad things about Bo Crowder in Harlan County. Even then. Maybe especially then.) 

When Boyd Crowder's mama dies, it's an event. An Event, capital 'e', because Bo Crowder says she took sick and Boyd, when Raylan asks, looks like he's about to be sick himself. It's the summer between eighth and ninth grade, and when Raylan says it after practice one day, lagging back to get him alone – _I didn't know your mama was sick, Boyd, Mama and Aunt Helen never said anything_ – something flashes over Boyd's face that he can't quite put a name to, but it's not something he's seen before. 

“She took sick last year,” Boyd says mildly, and it doesn't sound right, but Raylan's not going to say anything. “It had been some time comin'. She didn't want a fuss.” 

“Mama and Aunt Helen would've helped,” Raylan says, a little bit reproachful. You tell your neighbors when there's illness in the family, especially the killing type. You let the women help and the men talk, even if you're a no-good Crowder from the top hollers. 

“I believe that's a fuss, Raylan,” Boyd says, laughing a little. His teeth are very straight and very white, and it's not the first time Raylan's seen him laugh, of course – of course – but it's the first time he's really looked. Boyd is all angles, like maybe he doesn't get fed properly, except that can't be right because Bowman is ten years old and bigger than half the boys in Raylan and Boyd's class. The Crowders are trash, but they aren't half as poor as some of Harlan County's more respectable folk. They – well, Bo, now – can afford to feed their boys. 

“Come over sometime,” Raylan says before he can think to stop himself. “To Helen's. Not Arlo's.” _Arlo's_ , not home. 

Boyd crosses his arms over his narrow chest, but it's interested, not defensive. “Why would I do that, Raylan?” He says Raylan's name a lot, like he's trying to aggravate him or maybe just get his attention. Maybe he just likes the way it sounds. Raylan doesn't know; he can't begin to fathom the workings of Boyd Crowder's mind, even then. 

“Supper,” he says simply, shrugging one shoulder. “Don't imagine your daddy is much of a cook.” There's a pause, then, “I'd appreciate you not mentionin' that to him.” He's only half joking. 

“I don't mention an awful lot to my daddy, Raylan,” Boyd says, all teeth, and Raylan knows he's thinking about that moment in the locker room the summer before. 

“Can't imagine why,” Raylan says easily. “You change your mind, there'll be a spot at Helen's table.” Helen won't turn him away, skinny as Boyd is, losing his mama like he done. Helen wouldn't turn him away regardless, if Raylan brought him. 

“I didn't say no,” Boyd says, and starts walking towards the showers, but not like he's trying to leave the conversation; he's slow about it, glancing over his shoulder like he's making sure Raylan's following. 

“Oh,” Raylan says, maybe a little wrongfooted. “You like catfish?” 

“I like food,” Boyd says, grinning over his shoulder. Raylan's not entirely sure how real it is, but he grins back. 

“See you tonight,” he says. “Seven, seven thirty.” 

 

**thirty-eight**

Raylan doesn't smoke much – he picked it up during the divorce and he'd kicked it almost immediately after – but on the way back to Lexington, he stops at a gas station. He puts in twenty dollars worth of gas and buys a pack of Marlboros with the federal card. 

It doesn't make him stop thinking about Boyd Crowder and S-K-I-N H-E-A-D carved into his knuckles (prison ink, his brain helpfully supplies, faded enough after a decade that they'll be gone completely by the time he's an old man, if he lives that long), but it's distraction enough for now. 

 

**sixteen**

“You could leave,” Raylan says. They're laying in the grass outside of Lee Martindale's house, and it's so hot even past dark that they both feel they might just be melting. There's a party going not fifty feet away and they've both got beers perched precariously on the ground next to them – or maybe it's only precarious because Raylan is well past tipsy and en route to drunk – but it's quiet, this far out. Boyd is drunker than Raylan, and they'd come out with a couple of girls – more happenstance than anything – but they'd both gone back to the fun. Raylan's not much of a ladies man, but Boyd draws them in like a tomcat, curling around their ankles and purring compliments in their ears. 

Raylan doesn't like it, but he can't rightfully say so. He and Boyd, they pretend they ain't friends, sometimes. They pretend they don't know each other as well as they do, and Raylan, he pretends that he doesn't want to know Boyd quite as desperately as he does. It gets harder by the day.

“How's that,” Boyd says, sitting up on one elbow. He's lighting a cigarette, but he turns so he's not facing Raylan before he lets out the smoke. It takes Raylan a second to tell that it's not tobacco. 

“I mean, you could just,” Raylan starts, then sits up, too, feeling at a disadvantage somehow with Boyd up like he is. “Leave, you could graduate and get out of here.” _With me_ , he wants to finish, but doesn't. 

“Why would I do that, Raylan?” Boyd glances at him, then, after a second, offers him the joint. Raylan takes it after a heartbeat of hesitation and Boyd watches him take the hit, eyebrows raised. 

“You ever done that before?” 

Raylan nods, a little crankily, because he's not about to admit to Boyd Crowder that he's never smoked a little weed before. He chokes a little on his exhale and Boyd snorts but doesn't laugh at him. 

“Shut up,” he says anyway, and Boyd grins broadly at him, waving the joint back at him. 

“Take a real one,” he says. “Hold 'er in a little longer, let it out slower. It's good shit, it's the B – it's from the holler.” He'd caught himself before he'd said it, _Bennetts_ , like he thinks Raylan's going to stalk off, affronted at even the mention.

Maybe he would, some other time. But not right now. 

Raylan does as he's told and hands it back; Boyd takes it this time, sucking down a slow hit, and Raylan can't keep his eyes off of his mouth. 

 

**twenty**

“You could go to school,” Raylan's saying. There's an untouched bottle of beer in front of him, and Boyd glances up from the cards he's dealing himself – he likes to practice, even though he's the best poker player Raylan, or anybody else, knows. They're in the house Boyd and Bowman share; Bowman's gone – Raylan wouldn't be here if he wasn't – out to Audrey's, likely, or some high schooler's party. It's not really Bowman's place, but he butts heads with the old man so much that he practically lives there, too. 

Raylan fucking hates it. He hates _Bowman_ , although that's not something he can say to Boyd – Boyd might not like him much, either, but Boyd's his brother and he's allowed to say such things. _I just don't like having to sneak around_ , he'd said one night a few weeks back, one arm looped around Boyd's thin waist, chin resting on his shoulder from behind. _Wish there was just one place we could go we wouldn't have to hide._

_Welcome to Harlan County_ , Boyd had said, and if Raylan was anyone else, anyone that didn't know him quite as well, he'd miss the bitterness in his voice. _Enjoy your stay_. 

“I could go to Mars,” Boyd says casually. “Or to Angora.” 

“I think college is a little more likely,” Raylan says, unexpectedly angry, all of a sudden. “Boyd –”

“Raylan,” Boyd answers, only there's no anger in his voice, just tiredness. “How many times have we talked about this?” 

“Not enough,” Raylan shoots back. It's hard to be angry when Boyd won't get pissed back at him, though, and he just spins the bottle cap around on the table for a moment. “You're better than this. You're better than that goddamn mine.” 

“Ain't you?” Boyd's looking at him again, having returned to his cards for a moment.

“We ain't talkin' about me,” Raylan says, already a little defensive. Silence falls – sometimes he likes being the only one that can make Boyd Crowder silent and sometimes he hates it so much his gut aches, and this is one of those times. 

“I just hate this fuckin' town,” he says finally, a little helplessly. “I hate – this, I hate hidin' you.” 

“So what should we do,” Boyd says, sitting back in his chair. “Move to San Francisco? I can just see you marchin' in a queer pride parade, baby. We can send my old man a postcard, Bowman, too, see how long it would take 'em to come out there and find us.” 

“That ain't what I'm talkin' about,” Raylan says, even though it almost is, without the parades and postcards. 

“We're Harlan, Raylan,” Boyd says finally, and lights a cigarette. “You know that just as much as I do. I'm a Crowder, an' you're a Givens, and we're Harlan 'til we die.” He takes a long drag. Raylan doesn't say anything; he's looking at the tabletop. He can tell Boyd's watching him. “You can run away, my darlin'. You can run to Venezuela or Maine or China, but you know it's true. And it ain't ever gonna change.” 

_You can run away, my darlin'._ A week later, Raylan does. 

 

**seventeen**

They're down at somebody's pond – Johnny Crowder's girl-of-the-week's cousin's, or something, Raylan didn't pay a whole lot of attention – and Raylan is growing increasingly glad he drove his truck down. There's a ring of them around the pond, most backed up against it but a few parked right so their headlights shine out across the water (which is damn stupid – Raylan's not wasting his battery for that). The fire's burned down, by now; when he shut his truck off a couple of hours ago it was past one in the morning, and just about everybody's asleep, stretched out on blankets and damp towels or, in a few cases, in the grass. 

He's awake, though, and so is Boyd; they're in the bed of his truck and Boyd's smoking a cigarette, using a red Solo cup as an ashtray. It's got the last little bit of Raylan's Jim and Coke in the bottom, sludgy with ash – Boyd smokes like a goddamn chimney when he drinks – and Raylan takes his cigarette away from him when it burns down far enough, tossing it into the cup and knocking the cup off the edge into the grass. 

“You might drink it again by accident,” he says to Boyd's reproving look, and Boyd's startled into tipsy, pleased laughter, like he likes it that Raylan remembered. 

“That was one time,” he says, “an' it was a sip, that wasn't a drink.” 

“Okay,” Raylan says, nodding like he believes him. Boyd doesn't get loud when he's drunk, which is nice – Raylan's half sure they'd get the shit kicked out of them if they made noise right now, as drunk as most of the boys down here are. He's not even entirely sure that Boyd's drunk; his own buzz had worn off fifteen twenty minutes ago, though things are still swimming pleasantly. 

“Are you drunk, Boyd?” he asks, turning to face him like the question's important enough to warrant eye contact. It's a full moon, or near to, and Boyd looks washed-out and barely there in the bright pale light. Raylan touches him, lifts a hand to put it on his arm, then his side, like he's trying to make sure he's solid. Maybe he's drunker than he thought. 

“I am somewhat,” Boyd starts, then pauses. “Yes,” he decides finally. “Yes, Raylan, I am drunk.” He hasn't looked at the hand Raylan's got resting on his ribs, but he hasn't moved, either. Raylan thinks he should move it. He doesn't particularly want to. 

“We should sleep,” Boyd adds after a moment, and Raylan makes a little humming noise of assent, tugging Boyd down with him as he falls into his side. It's not a particularly long fall; ever since Raylan got his truck, they come to parties like this, together, and nine times out of ten they end up sleeping in the bed of it, curled up on faintly stale blankets and using wadded-up hooded sweatshirts for pillows. Sometimes Raylan takes a girl back, but not often. 

When they sleep back here, usually, it's Boyd on one side and Raylan on the other – the truck isn't big, a piece of shit '72 Ford that Raylan bought the summer before he turned sixteen and spent a year just making drivable – but tonight distance apparently ain't in the cards. He's not sure who starts it, but they're close enough that he can feel Boyd's body heat – his hand is on Boyd's side again, heavy on his ribs, and Boyd's skin is hot through the thin fabric of his threadbare tee-shirt. He smells good, Boyd does, clean like soap and a little like coal dust (they aren't supposed to work in the mine until they're eighteen but nobody's going to say no to Bo Crowder's son, and that smell never quite goes away) and faded like tobacco, and Raylan's close to him, too close for this to be right, only he's mostly sure he doesn't give a fuck what's right and what ain't, not right now. 

“Are you smellin' me,” Boyd says, mostly in a mumble, and tilts his face up towards Raylan's, and just like that their lips are touching. It's not quite a kiss until Raylan turns it into one (and he remembers that twenty years later, he remembers that Boyd might have started it but he's the one that made it real). “You're real fuckin' weird,” Boyd's saying, pulling back just enough to say that, and it's _just_ enough – their lips are still touching when he speaks, and Raylan, all of a sudden, doesn't want to hear him talk. He kisses him again, for real, this time, and Boyd is kissing him back, raising himself up just enough that he can make the angle right; Raylan is all pressure and heat but Boyd has the finesse, Boyd knows how to kiss, and Raylan's somehow not surprised. 

He doesn't like it, though. He's gone off with girls before and God knows Boyd has, and he doesn't like it, doesn't like that somebody else has touched him like this, and there's something hot and heavy and possessive unfurling in his belly and roaring up into his chest, quickening his heart until it's throwing itself against his ribcage like a wild animal in a shrinking cage. The hand on Boyd's side has roamed down to his hip, edging up underneath the hem of his shirt, and Boyd just lets him – he's skinny, still, and Raylan's hand wraps most of the way around his hip, thumb digging into the spot under his hipbone when he tugs him closer.

“Christ,” Boyd says, in that same quiet voice, and he sounds much less drunk than he did five minutes ago – Raylan's not sure if that was an act or this is or neither or both – “you tryna leave bruises, Raylan Givens?”, and Raylan's mouth drops to Boyd's neck, his free hand knotting in Boyd's hair to pull his head to the side. Yeah, he says, yeah, maybe, and sets his teeth to the soft spot under Boyd's sharp jaw, worrying at the skin like he's trying to raise a mark already. Boyd doesn't stop him, Boyd's breath gets quicker and shallower the harder Raylan works, and it takes Raylan about ten seconds to decide this isn't good enough; the hand in Boyd's hair moves down to his shoulder and just like that he's on his back, tugging Boyd on top of him. 

_Shit_ , Boyd breathes, keeping himself pressed low against Raylan like he thinks somebody will see them – the moon is bright, but everybody's dead drunk and sleeping, although Raylan isn't about to discourage Boyd pressed up against him like this. _Shit, Raylan_ , and it hits him, then, that that wasn't what Boyd meant, Boyd wasn't scared of one of their goddamn idiot friends catching them – Boyd's hands are clenched around his shoulders and his neck is arched like he's trying to give Raylan more room and it's the hottest goddamn thing he's ever seen, bar fucking none, bony little Boyd Crowder panting his name. 

He says as much, mouth pressed hot and wet against Boyd's jackrabbit pulse, _you're so fuckin' hot, Boyd, Christ_ , and Boyd says _shut the fuck up_ against his mouth, one hand snaking down between them to tug Raylan's belt buckle open. Raylan's surprised enough that he stops kissing him back for a moment, right up until Boyd murmurs _c'mon, up,_ and that's about when he's got one hand fisted in Boyd's thick hair, tugging him down again for another kiss. He catches his bottom lip between his and Boyd's teeth and sucks in a quick little breath, then another when his bare ass meets the blanket and Boyd gets a hand around his cock. 

This isn't the first time he's done this, or anything like it – he lost his virginity when he was fifteen to Jessie Moss on Casey McClain's bed – but it's different here, it's _Boyd_ here, and he feels like a virgin, half scared and half excited enough he feels like he might have a goddamn heart attack. Boyd's good at this, mouthing mostly gentle at his neck and running his thumb up underneath the head of Raylan's cock like he's trying to speed things along, and it's as that thought occurs that enough follows just after, like lightning after thunder – Boyd's done this before, maybe, Boyd's – 

“Hey,” Raylan says, quiet and rough, “hey, hey, c'mere,” and Boyd does as he's told, kisses Raylan like he can read his mind, thorough and deep and fucking filthy – he sucks on his tongue and it's messy and shouldn't be nearly as hot as it is but Raylan's got to clench his fist and dig his nails into his palm so he doesn't come right there and embarrass the fuck out of himself. 

It doesn't take long after that, though – five minutes, maybe ten, before he comes with a sharp shallow gasp and grips Boyd's hip hard enough there'll be a sunrise bruise by this time tomorrow. There's a spot radiating a faint ache right where his neck meets his shoulder and it takes him a moment to remember that Boyd had been biting him towards the end. 

“Jesus,” he says, quiet and breathless, one hand on Boyd's hip, still, and the other tugging up his jeans but not bothering to refasten them. Boyd's wiping his hand off on the blanket and it takes Raylan a second to catch that he's hard, too, after that, and it hits him like a fucking freight train, Boyd's hard from jerking him off, Jesus fucking Christ. He says it again, softer but more pointed, says _c'mere,_ tugs Boyd back on top of him – it takes him a few moments to get Boyd's jeans worked down around his thighs but it takes less time than that to get him off; Boyd's hips roll in sharp jerky motions, half letting Raylan jerk him off and half fucking up into Raylan's fist, gasping _fuck, fuck, Raylan_ into his neck when he comes. 

Boyd doesn't move, and Raylan doesn't move him. 

“You got come on my shirt,” Raylan mumbles finally, mostly into Boyd's hair. Boyd laughs breathlessly against his neck, and it takes Raylan just a second to notice he's trembling, just a little. 

“So I did,” he says, presses a kiss against the shelf of Raylan's jaw. 

They don't fall asleep like that. It's a near thing, though. 

 

**thirty-eight**

( _Boyd and I dug coal together,_ Boyd hears him say over the pounding blood in his ears.)


End file.
